


begging for a fist around it

by x (ordinary)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Choking, F/M, Femdom, Ficlet, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 21:16:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4850822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ordinary/pseuds/x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen deals poorly with being Meredith’s trophy boyfriend. Elyse is a harlot that leaves ashes in her wake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	begging for a fist around it

**i.**

“When you get queasy, simply look out  _above_ them,” Elyse offers, her voice soothing and calm, trained just-so into a caricature of perfection, even though it’s just the two of them. 

“In that moment, see them not for what they are as  _individuals_ , but for what they are worth to you, collectively. And remind me again, Rutherford--” the sting of his surname, a reminder that she is more and that he is less-than. A sting that still manages to color his cheeks. From her perch on his desk, Elyse smirks.

“What does their opinion mean to you?” 

“Nothing,” Cullen mutters, hoarse, but it’s not exactly true. He just wishes it was.

“Good,” she replies, but no  _boy_  is appended, like there might be if they were somewhere else. Within these four walls, Elyse was just a girl: a sophomore, a cheerleader. Smart and pretty and poised and rich and everything she should be, to keep her standing. Slightly above the median, but not  _too_  far. Not enough to be noticed consistently.

“They are an ocean to lose yourself in, and while their favor is to be curried, you can drift away on it. Especially since it’s not really your approval you have to worry about, but Meredith’s, and they’re going to  _love_  her, so! Smile, because it’s pretty, and you’ve got a dimple. It’s charming. I’m not sure why you’ve got such a problem, honestly.” 

She reaches out to caress Cullen’s face, like he might a recalcitrant animal, one that she was awfully fond of, not a boy two years her senior, one with a girlfriend at that.

(Later, he’ll realize: he should have seen the signs. He should have known.)

 

**ii.**

Meredith Stannard smiles for the camera, her perfect teeth glittering in two flawless rows. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but that’s normal, and the desired effect besides. She’s just been elected President of the local Young Republicans club, and her high school sweetheart, Cullen Rutherford, stands beside her. Captain of the football team. High school senior. Mayor’s son. Checkbox after checkbox after checkbox.

He looks, admittedly, a bit green around the gills. Like he’d rather be anywhere than beside the woman at his side, a year his elder, two inches shorter, and not at all his romantic interest beyond the political ploy their parents have arranged for them. But appearances are important, and right now, he’s not meeting them.

Flawless French manicured nails dig into Cullen’s wrists like ten diamond points, the pressure to perform like the lapdog he is hanging palpable in the air.

“You should probably keep your pretty mouth shut,” Meredith hisses through her teeth, throwing a loving glance up at him, looking positively radiant. His spine straightens up, and he looks out to the crowd. There’s not even that many of them: New York is a large city, but Young Republican events are no political powerhouse event, no matter how much Meredith wishes that were true.

Cullen’s jaw snaps shut, and his smile shifts from positively wobbly into something easier, more confident. He trains his gaze like Elyse had coached him not too long ago, in an empty classroom after AP US History, red hair pulled back into a messy bun, the evening sun filtering in behind her, casting her in an ethereal light.

"Was that so hard?” Meredith asks, almost soothing, snapping Cullen back into reality, and he wants to say yes, it is. His heart is still caught in his throat, and his wrists are still shaking, all the more evident now that Meredith has withdrawn her vice-like grip.

But, instead, Cullen shakes his head no, and runs a hand through his gelled hair, the curls of it coming undone. But she smiles, knowingly, and pats his cheek.

“Don’t let that tart keep you from coming in to school tomorrow,” she says, already pulling her phone from her purse, texting her driver, surely preparing for a weekend at the Hamptons with her own discreet methods of enjoyment. Meredith doesn’t even have the good graces to pretend to be surprised, or affronted. “The rumors were bad enough last time, in case you’ve forgotten the Samson ordeal.”

He hasn’t. It’s as explicit a permission he’s going to get. Part of him wishes he hadn’t gotten one.

It’s not a life he signed up for, but it’s the one he’s been allotted. He texts her-- Elyse, the tart, the slut-- and his hands shake, the weight of it thick on his tongue.

And of course, she makes him wait, late into the night. The reply comes just after the sun’s gone down, long after anxiety has gone twisting in Cullen’s chest like a cold snake, the urge to jump to the worst conclusion so tempting.

His phone lights up, and Cullen snatches at it with an embarrassing speed, fumbling to read it. Come over, it says, and nothing more.

so he does.

 

**iii.**

His entire body trembles before her, an offering of flesh laid bare.

Suit-jacket and tie scattered to from the door to the living room, buttons popped and rolled along the way.

Her patience gone before the kitchen, red lines dragged on his bronzed skin, hard enough to draw blood. And won’t wonders ever  _cease_? Cullen is  _panting_  for it, the precious conservative boy who’d come to her in his Sunday best, hard in his unbuttoned slacks, eyes rolling like a horse’s gone wild. Heaving, pleading, but not even knowing for what.

It’s as laughable as it is sad.

Elyse smooths his hair back from his forehead, a horrible little curl freed from its equally terrible gel trapping, and caresses his cheeks with both hands.

“I’ll take care of you,” she lies, her grey eyes vivid like a bonfire. “I  _promise_.”

In her is an awakening, a hunger awakening from an  _opportunity_  that no other man has given her.

She smiles like a jackal, feral and exposed, and kisses him with intent to consume, her slim fingers wrapping around his neck. Cullen struggles to exhale a relieved sigh, but it never makes it out of his lungs.

As that handsome face turn violet beneath her chandelier, Elyse revels in the roar of blood beneath her fingertips. (It would be so  _easy_ to hold on too long.)

They don’t fuck, and Elyse isn’t sure if she wants them to: would he even know  _how_  to do it properly?

The next day, Cullen wears a new cashmere scarf, just in time for a cold-snap. No one bats an eye, until his girlfriend picks him up from football practice. Meredith Stannard takes one look at it and  _knows_ , catching a glimpse of Elyse on the sidelines, and cocks her head.

Predators recognize each other, after all.


End file.
